The large number of financial, ID, loyalty, membership, security and other cards that are carried by individuals is growing based upon the introduction of cards for loyalty programs, memberships, and the like in addition to financial transactional cards or credit cards, which financial cards now also include gift cards, and prepaid cards. Some, or in individual cases, most of these cards carry a risk of identity theft and potential financial risk. For certain cards, such as an entry card that controls opening a security door or the like, the risk is higher in that a person improperly utilizing such card can be responsible for personal attacks and theft of goods or other property. Certainly a way of minimizing the volume of cards carried by an individual so as to limit the risk of identity or property loss and personal injury is to reduce the number of cards carried by an individual in order to minimize the amount of personal information that can be exposed if any such card is lost or stolen and also to disguise the true nature of the card where personal security is involved.
As such, it is a goal of the present invention to reduce the potential for fraud and theft based upon improper usage of any of these types of card. The primary problem is that individuals carry too many cards and the potential for improper use is increased not only by the shear number of cards, but also by the increase inability to keep track of all such cards. With so many cards being typically carried by an individual, a person could easily misplace one card and not realize it for quite some time.